I don't like you… sometimes
by planet p
Summary: AU; Lyle contemplates the ramifications his former life, when he was Bobby, have on his present life. Chapter 1: First posted as part of One hundred words. Chapter 2: A continuation.
1. Chapter 1

Oh… oh… oh… no. He wants to hate Bobby, has hated him – Oh, how he has hated Bobby! But he has never – _never_ – not cared for him too. Sometimes he thinks that is the reason he is alive.

He has hated him for his selfishness, for his childishness. In the end, everything was Bobby's fault. In the end, it was Bobby's fault he was here, now. Because Bobby had to be a baby!

Yes, sometimes he hates Bobby so much, but he knows too, that he could not live without Bobby. Bobby had been first, and then he had come.

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**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.


	2. Chapter 2

He could imagine the conversation; if he'd ever have that conversation with Bobby. It would always end the same way: with it being his fault. Bobby never had been able to accept that he'd done anything wrong. _A real lunatic, that one_, he thought. It was hard to think that he'd been that kid, once.

It would start like this: He would ask, "Why would you hurt Jimmy? He was our _friend_." He'd make sure to emphasise that little fact.

"I didn't hurt him. Well, only for a little while. I helped him. Nobody can hurt him now, can they? What would you have done? I suppose you'd have left him with them, you'd have let them go on hurting him?"

"We both know why you did it – and it wasn't for Jimmy's benefit."

"You _think_ you know! What do you really know? Who do you really care for? I _cared_ for Jimmy, who do you care for? That's right – you! You're nothing like me! What about all of those women? You can't tell me you care for them! You don't know how to care about anyone! Our mother was sad and lonely and, yeah, fairly well cracked, but does that mean you should hate all women? Excuse me, but I'd think that would make you want to help them. But that's just you, isn't it? Everything's got to be about you! Don't you know, on our own, we're no one; on our own, we're not even a person. You're so pathetic. And you wonder why I want _so_ much to do with you! No thanks."

"And what are you? A _kid_! What the fuck would you know anyway! When did you ever stop that lunatic from hitting you, or our mother? When did you ever stick up for her? You _didn't_, because she never stuck up for _you_ – you _wanted_ him to hit her. She deserved it: she was a shitty mother and a shitty wife!"

"Oh sure!"

"That's exactly how it was!"

"Don't strain yourself, you might hurt yourself. You're right: Jimmy was our friend. I guess I was paying him back for being such a pathetic loser, never standing up for himself, never setting a good example for me; he'd never have amounted to anything in life, anyway."

"Now you're getting it."

"He owed me!"

"Yes, he did."

"I guess the whole world _owes_ you, too! For being such a crappy world, huh?"

"That's not what I said."

"You didn't have to."

"Don't put words in my mouth."

"You put them in mine. Why don't you use some initiative and join the human race. Just because you've been hurt doesn't mean you hurt other people; you don't perpetuate the cycle, it only comes back to you. You only hurt yourself double. People are just people; the past is the past. Learn to live, one day, won't you? One of us has to."

Yeah, it was always his fault.

He couldn't hate Bobby, though, right? Not really. He had no choice but to take Bobby's side, right?

He hated Bobby, sure, but Bobby hated him right back, and that made it okay, didn't it? They were even. Underneath, they were really just one person; underneath, they didn't really hate each other.

Sometimes he wondered, though. Sometimes, he wondered what would happen if Bobby were to come back. If he were to come back for real; if he decided he wanted to live again.

_Bobby would never do that_, he told himself, _because underneath, he knows that I'd never do anything to hurt him, underneath, he knows I love him._

Bobby would never get up the courage to do anything about it, anyway. He just wasn't that brave; he wasn't even that clever. Jimmy had always been the smart one, Bobby had been the one who'd gone along with all of Jimmy's schemes and taken the credit because the recognition had been too much for Jimmy, because he'd been put down too much to be able to take it being any other way.

Bobby had been right, he thought, Jimmy hadn't deserved to live; he'd been weak.

Underneath, he had a feeling that the reason Jimmy and Bobby had become friends wasn't because they'd been different, but because they'd been the same.

Bobby would never do anything; would never have amounted to anything. In a lot of ways, he thought, he'd done him the biggest favour of all: he'd gotten him a life, he'd made something of their life, given them a reason to live. He'd been the smart one, the _brave_ one!

Who the _fuck_ was Bobby to complain!


End file.
